Even by the standards of the day, the task the 15th-century Yongle emperor in China gave to his scholars was unreasonable: compile and organize a book containing all the knowledge of the world, and make sure the information was easy to access. Remarkably, they succeeded in the mission, producing the … Continue reading
Category Archives: Lectures
150 Years Later, A Massacre Still Haunts
For author Ari Kelman, the passage of 150 years has not dulled the impact or resolved the ambiguities surrounding the Sand Creek Massacre, one of the most notorious events in U.S. history. Soon after dawn on Nov. 29, 1864, with the Civil War raging and the fate of the Union … Continue reading
Give Trees a Chance
In his new book, Trees in Paradise: A California History, historian Jared Farmer recounts the first Earth Day as it played out in Southern California: “April 1970. The Beatles announce their breakup. U.S. forces gather for the invasion of Cambodia. The world had seen better days. Chanting ‘Give Earth a … Continue reading
A “Merry and Bright” Christmas Garden
During the holiday season, adding some Christmas color around the house often means a quick trip to the garden center to grab a couple of red poinsettias. The foil-wrapped pots full of holiday cheer start springing up on front porches all over town. But why stop there when the season … Continue reading
Leaving an Indelible Mark
Before Nelson Mandela was president of South Africa, he was a prisoner for 27 years, most of them served on the infamous Robben Island. During that incarceration, he was one of 34 prisoners who shared a copy of The Alexander Text of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. In May 2013, … Continue reading
LECTURES | Better Living Through Electricity
On Monday night, April 1, The Huntington will host a panel discussion devoted to the web-based digital exhibition “Form and Landscape: Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940–1990.” That new exhibition is part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. and is slated to … Continue reading
An Economic Historian Plays with Art History
Steve Hindle, the W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at The Huntington, will present a lecture at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday evening, March 6, in Friends’ Hall. His subject: The economic history of 18th-century rural England. Here he explains how he arrived at a visual representation of that story. … Continue reading
A Library of Last Resort
Henry Edwards Huntington was born on this day in 1850, which makes today Founder’s Day at The Huntington. You can mark the occasion by downloading last week’s Founder’s Day talk by David Zeidberg, the Avery Director of the Library. Zeidberg’s lecture is the comprehensive answer to one of the most … Continue reading
Historical Moments Past and Present
Today Barack Obama will be sworn in for his second term as president of the United States, although the public ceremony and inaugural speech won’t take place until Monday. In today’s New York Times, historian Ronald C. White Jr. explains why second inaugural addresses often fall flat, albeit with one … Continue reading
AUDIO | The Work of Death
Historian Drew Gilpin Faust, president of Harvard University and author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, spoke at The Huntington last night about Ric Burns’ adaptation of her book into the new PBS documentary “Death and the Civil War.” You can download her talk from The … Continue reading